Just got my first Plasma! Just a few ???

[Petra_Kalbrain]

Originally Posted by fredreed

I have heard nothing but bad things on plasma's. I would have stayed away from buying a plasma and would buy a Led TV instead. The plasma inside the tv will only last about 2 years and then you will end up buying another tv. My advice return the plasma and go with The Led.

Wow... what an idiot... There is only one reason to suggest LCD or LED over Plasma. And the reason listed above is certainly not it. The only reason to suggest LCD or LED over Plasma has to do with viewing conditions. Plasma has better quality consistency if the viewing room is guaranteed to be 100% dark every time it is used. LCD and LED are more consistent at providing quality image with varying amounts of light in the viewing area during operation. And, EVEN THEN, Plasmas have gotten much better at solving this issue in the last 5 years or so even though they aren't quite as good with it as LCD and LED sets yet.

ON TOPIC:

Anyhow. ObiWanShinobi, There are 3 pieces of advice that I always offer my friends and family when they get a new HDTV when it comes to settings:

#1. TURN OFF THAT IDIOTIC SMOOTHING FEATURE! I know it's called "Motionflow" on Sony sets, but I can't recall other brands naming of it. It's the setting that makes everything look like it was filmed with a handheld camera by an extremely amateur film crew.

#2. When adjusting SHARPNESS, make certain to immediately drop it to ZERO first. Then, very slowly inch your way up 1 value at a time... even jumping back and forth at times to compare the immediate values on either side of the current value. I find that a misplaced sharpness value is worse for ruining an image than a misplaced contrast value.

#3. EVERY OTHER SETTING VALUE AND CHOICE should be adjusted based solely on what your eyes see. Every human eyeball sees things differently. And, every human brain follows suit. What looks good to you is what matters most. I've seen a few people get professional ISF calibrations done who think it looked terrible. They felt it was a waste of a couple hundred dollars as they had to change all the settings afterwards anyways.